Story: The Lethe, Pt. XI

“Anything, Marquél?” asked Dobbins.
“No, sir,” replied the young woman. “I’ve been trying to contact the Lethe on every frequency. If their communications systems are working, they should be receiving it instantly. Either they’re not receiving us, or they’re not responding.”
Before Dobbins could thank Marquél and walk away, the entire room seemed to spin in one giant circle. Dobbins grabbed the console to brace himself.
“Captain,” Marquél’s voice sounded distance, hollow, concerned, “are you okay?”
“What happened?” the dazed Dobbins asked. “For a second, it felt like the whole room was spinning.”
Marquél smiled slightly in relief. “That’s a normal side effect of jump drive travel, sir, for those who aren’t used to it. It took me a few jumps to adjust to it, but now, it doesn’t bother me at all.”
“Very well. Thank you, Lieutenant.” Dobbins carefully walked back to his command station and sat down, waiting for Sawyer to finish her scanning of space ahead of the Hyperion.
One hour passed, and Sawyer’s scans all showed no sign of the Lethe itself, only faint traces of the ship’s ion trail. Based on the dissipation rate, Sawyer estimated that the Lethe had passed through this area about 25 years ago.
Dobbins ordered another jump. Again, Dobbins found himself watching the control panel as the jump field built. Then, it felt as if he had blacked out for the briefest of instants, and when he had regained consciousness, the instruments indicated that the jump field again was dropping. Attempting to stand and then thinking better of it when the room once again started to play merry-go-round, Dobbins sat in his chair and watching the sensor reports as Sawyer began to scan anew for the Lethe. Once again, the sensors turned up nothing except the Lethe’s ion trail.
Another jump occurred, putting the Hyperion 15 light years from Earth. The tedious scan process began again. Once again, nothing except the Lethe’s trail. Another jump followed, then a fourth, and fifth. Each time the sensors came up empty. Just as Dobbins began to think that he would have to brace himself for a sixth jump, Sawyer exclaimed, “Captain, I’ve found something!”
Slowly, Dobbins stood up and walked over to her station. “What is it? The Lethe?”
Sawyer frowned. “I can’t tell, sir. It’s something, but it’s near the far edge of sensor range, about 4 light years away. It’s clearly metallic, but other than that, I can’t tell. It could be the Lethe. It could also be one of our early jump-drive probes. We sent a few out this direction. We’re too far away for a visual to be meaningful. If we could jump closer, I could tell you for sure.”
“Lieutenant Skylar,” Dobbins said, spinning around gradually to avoid a repeat of his earlier vertigo, “how close can you get us to that object using the jump drive?”
“As close as you want me to, sir,” came the reply from the confident young helmsman.
“Very well. Get us to within five hundred kilometers of that object. I want to be close enough to get a good visual on the object, but far enough away that we don’t run the risk of getting it caught in our jump field.”
“Aye, sir,” Skylar replied as he began the calculations for making the new jump. Within thirty seconds, he had completed his calculations and initiated the jump sequence.
As the sequence began, Dobbins suddenly wished that he had sat down. After the brief blackout that indicated the jump had taken place, the room seemed to spin for a second before returning to normal. Maybe I’ll get used to this one of these days, Dobbins thought.
“Captain!” Sawyer said, exuding excitement. “We’re close to have a visual, and there’s no question about it, sir. I can’t believe it. It’s the Lethe!”